From good to great:
Higher education
Do we need a university,
or do we already have one?
asks REBECCA NOAH POYNTER
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, August 31, 2007
In the last 30 years, if you graduated from high school in Collin County, "going to college" probably meant leaving for a state school in Lubbock, College Station, San Marcos or Austin. Some stayed home and attended Collin College, a junior college, or commuted to University of Texas at Dallas, University of North Texas or Texas A&M at Commerce.
Collin County has no four-year state-funded university, but it does have an interesting legend as to why. According to Bill Haynes, local historian and retired high school teacher, a state university was intended for McKinney in the 1920s. No such institution ever made it to Collin County because community leaders thought too much moral depravity would come with it.
Mr. Haynes says that when he commuted to North Texas State Teachers College, now UNT, in an un-airconditioned car, "it sure made me wish for a state university in Collin County." Today no educational institution is located at the intersection of College Street and Universitarticles2y Drive in McKinney and the adjacent counties have state universities with jobs, economic stability and vitality.
Most great places have universities associated with them. If you think we have enough around us, consider this: according to 2007 Money Magazine's Best Places to Live: Plano has fewer than the national average number of colleges, university and professional schools within 30 miles of the city. A great place has an average of 29 institutions, Collin County's Plano is listed with 17 – good but not great.
Within the radius, neighboring Denton, Dallas and Hunt counties host well-established state universities because someone thought enough of their people and their piece of North Texas dirt to ask the state of Texas for a university.
There are two types of people who can make that happen: visionary business leaders and astute state legislators. In 1961, it was the founders of Texas Instruments, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott and Cecil Green who established the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest, now UTD, at the boundary of Dallas and Collin counties. This was in an effort to provide an educated workforce for area employers Collins Radio and Texas Instruments. More recently, State Senator Royce West's decade-long pursuit of college access for his constituents yielded the new University of North Texas Dallas campus.
Richardson Mayor Steve Mitchell says he expects UTD to have a growing presence in Collin County and the region. Adjacent to the campus, UTD now has the President George Bush Turnpike along with the proposed DART Cotton Belt line and its UTD stop. With two venues of access on the Collin County side, UTD leaders are considering a main campus entry opening northward.
As the fastest growing county in Texas, Collin County has the population and the available land to support another university, but does it have the desire for its own four-year state university? Do we have business leaders who recognize the benefits of higher education to local communities and state legislators who can guide the complicated process at the state level? Could the cities that make-up Collin County work together to accomplish the task?
Or should we work to make UTD the university of choice for Collin County, with all communities providing their full support and interest in its activities? Would UTD consider an additional northern campus?
As the popular business book From Good to Great says, "Greatness it turns out, is largely a matter of choice." So what will it be for the future of Collin County, now at the intersection of College and University?
Rebecca Noah Poynter is a writer and owner of a public relations business, OnPoynt Communications. Her opinion writing has most recently appeared in The Military Times, and this column is one of an occasional series focusing on quality-of-life issues in Collin County. She can be reached at rebecca@on poynt.com.
